Bishop Of Scranton To Address Banquet

March 16, 1988|The Morning Call

The Most Rev. James C. Timlin, bishop of the Diocese of Scranton, will be the keynote speaker at the Allentown Diocese's first annual appeal kick-off dinner to be held at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Days Inn Conference Center, Routes 22 and 309.

A reception will begin the evening at 6:30 p.m.

The 1988 appeal of $2.4 million was made public Jan. 22 by Bishop Thomas Welsh who announced he would combine four collections previously taken in the diocese's 153 parishes each March, May, September and November; The Higher Education Collection, the Catholic Charities Appeal, the Retired and Disabled Priests Collection and the Seminary Collection.

The special gifts phase of the appeal, geared to about 20 percent of the diocese's households, is already in progress and will continue through March. The general phase of the appeal will be held in April with a door-to-door solicitation of about 80 percent of the diocese's families. The appeal will officially close May 1.

Two regional status report meetings are scheduled for parish solicitors: April 12 at Bethlehem Catholic High School for residents of Carbon, Lehigh and Northampton counties and April 14 at Nativity Blessed Virgin Mary High School, Pottsville, for residents of Berks and Schuylkill counties. A Scranton native, Timlin, 60, attended parochial schools and began studies for the priesthood in Maryland and completed them at the North American College, Rome, Italy, where he was ordained a priest July 16, 1951. He was elevated to the rank of monsignor by Pope Paul VI on Aug. 3, 1967 when he was named a chaplain. He was appointed auxiliary bishop of Scranton in 1976 and ordained a bishop the following September in the Scranton Cathedral of St. Peter.

After completing his studies in Rome as a newly ordained priest, Timlin served 14 years as an assistant pastor in two parishes in the Scranton Diocese.

He was appointed assistant chancellor of the diocese and secretary to Bishop J. Carroll, now retired, in 1966; chancellor in 1971; Vicar General on Sept. 21 and pastor of the Church of the Nativity of Our Lord, Scranton, in September.

Upon the transfer of Bishop (now Cardinal) John O'Connor to the Archdiocese of New York, Timlin was named the eighth Bishop of Scranton in 1984 by Pope John Paul II.